The present invention relates to representing points of interest in map interfaces and, in particular, to the use of color schemes to represent the density of points of interest.
Location-related applications employ a variety of techniques to represent points of interest in map interfaces. For example, locations are often represented using various types of icon graphics which may be accompanied by text representing the type or even the name of the corresponding location. Alternatively, locations may be represented in a list ordered by their respective distance from a particular location. Unfortunately, such conventional representations have inherent limitations depending, for example, on the scope of the geographic area represented (e.g., the map magnification or zoom level), or the size of the display on which the information is presented
For example, if a user of a mobile device wants to see all of the Italian restaurants in New York City, conventional techniques would clearly be inadequate for representing the hundreds (if not thousands) of locations in the five boroughs, particularly on the relatively small display of a typical mobile device. Either the icons presented would completely obscure the map on which they are overlaid, or the list of locations would be far too long to scroll through. While this may be an extreme example, it serves to dramatically illustrate the limitations of conventional techniques. And even in cases where there are only 15 or 20 locations, the limitations of such approaches are well understood.